Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Friday 10 November 2006, 4:13 PM
The iPhone cometh. Maybe.
Hmm.
That said, where there's smoke there's usually fire, and it wouldn't be an enormous surprise to see an iPhone hit the shelves in the next couple of years. We can only hope that Apple learned its lesson from that debacle with the Motorola ROKR (Apple insisted that the phone only be able to contain 100 songs, so as to avoid too much competition for the iPod itself), which had the phone manufacturer running in tears to Linux for its next music-centric device.
Obviously Apple would be producing this one by itself but, as usual, we'll believe it when we see it.
PreviousComments on this post
Our colleague Jo Best has a good take on the iPhone, over on silicon.com....
Sorry, but Jo Best's good take fails to take into account the fact that the mobile phone market is not like the consumer electronics market, in that any product has to be endorsed by the networks who sell almost all of the handsets. And the mobile phone networks want an iPhone like they want a dose of the clap. They want to sell music from their own sites, not enable Apple to come in and steal their business. So they will strangle any Apple phone at birth, however nice it might look. Apple is totally screwed on the music front, and I hereby predict that Jobs will be sacked again in 18 months.
I also think Jo Best's piece is off-base, but not because of any dubious thoughts that its impossible to end-run the mobile phone networks in any way. Google the phrase "Apple 12 million". Let's pretend this is a done deal.
I disagree with her "take" because she doesn't know how to use iTunes, thinks Apple is out to put DRM on everything, apparently has phenomonal luck with buying great phone hardware in the past, and thinks Apple can't develop robust electronic devices. --They're still selling Newtons on eBay, Jo. Apple stopped making it in 1998... about 8 years ago. My 1G iPod (recently revived) is going off to my sister's like every old Mac I ever upgraded from. --And I almost don't want to let it go cause it still kicks as-bestos.
